Prelude To Power: 1931 Michael Faraday Celebration @RiArchives

Ri Archives | Prelude To Power: 1931 Michael Faraday Celebration @RiArchives | Uploaded October 2016 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
This black and white film from the late 1950s details the scientific researches of Michael Faraday undertaken at the Royal Institution, followed by (from 25:00 onwards) a presentation from William Henry Bragg on the life and work of Faraday.

This historical film explains the foundation of the Royal Institution, highlighting original objects from the Ri’s collection before entering the famous lecture theatre to look in on a schools lectures being given by Lawrence Bragg. Bragg and Bill Coats are seen demonstrating a Whimshurst machine and a Faraday cage and talking through the principles of electricity.

The film then moves into a restaging of Faraday's (played by Tony Thawnton) life and experimentation, showing him in his bookbinder’s workshop and then later undertaking his electrical researches at the Ri. The film, interspersed between reconstruction and animation, highlights the importance of magnets and Faraday’s theory of lines of force. The film explains and demonstrates in detail the work of Hans Christian Ørsted, Faraday’s development of the first electrical motor and the development of the electro-magnet.

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Movement of a Magnetic Fluid and other film excerpts

Excerpt from Experiments with the Bubble Model of Metal Structure - November 1952

1931 Michael Faraday Celebration with William Henry Bragg

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Surface Chemistry - Thin Film Experiments with Dr Irving Langmuir

$Young and the Wave Theory of Light - with Sir Lawrence Bragg Sir Lawrence begins by outlining the two contesting theories of light: the particles theory and the wave theory, which were held in the eighteenth century. This he follows with a description and demonstration of Thomas Youngs famous pinhole experiment; an experiment which validated the wave theory. Sir Lawrence turns to diffraction, showing its effects with the use of Youngs original Wave Trough of 1800 and explaining interference fringes in a series of fascinating demonstrations. From the original programme notes: Sir Lawrence Bragg at the Royal Institution of Great Britain Since 1826 a series of lectures, planned for young people, has been given at the Royal Institution during the fortnight after Christmas. These lectures, adapted to a juvenile auditory to use the nineteenth-century phase, were started as a new venture in science teaching. It is the tradition to illustrate the CHRISTMAS LECTURES with numerous experiments which are on an impressive scale and as far as possible of a novel type. Many experiments first shown in the Royal Institution theatre have become classical bench-experiments in schools and colleges, and many of the best popular scientific books have been based on CHRISTMAS LECTURES. A scheme was launched in 1955 to give corresponding lectures throughout the school year, because it seemed very desirable to use the facilities and traditions of the Institution to the full and thus make it possible for a larger audience to participate. The idea was proposed in the first place to a few science teachers in schools, and with their help it was started in a small way. The lectures had an enthusiastic reception, and the scheme soon grew to its present proportions â€“ over twenty thousand young people now come to the lectures each year. The main idea behind them is to show experiments, illustrating the basic principles of science, which are on too large a scale or involve too complicated apparatus to be readily staged with school resources. The majority of the lectures are on physical subjects, but chemistry and biology are also represented. In 1965, Lord Bowden, who was then Minister of State in the Department of Education and Science, expressed a wish that the lectures given by Sir Laurence Bragg be recorded in the form of films, and arranged that a sum of money be earmarked for that purpose. The series Sir Lawrence Bragg at the Royal Institution is the result of his interest. The films have been commissioned by the Educational Foundation for Visual Aids and shot on the premises of the Royal Institution. At first an attempt was made to film the actual schools lectures, but there were a number of drawbacks to this procedure. Ideal positions for the cameras were not possible in a crowded lecture room. An hours talk is too long, the film had to be divided into three or four sections, and it was not easy to tailor beginning and ends to the sections. It was finally realised that it would be much better to shoot each film as a separate project, with no audience and complete freedom for the camera team to take the long shots and close-ups in the best way. The possibility of close-up shots is a great advantage, because it enables effects to be shown which it would be impossible to demonstrate in a large lecture room. The present series consists of sixteen films covering the schools lectures dealing with magnetism, the properties of matter, and vibrations and waves. It is hoped to include electricity and other subjects in a further series. In the main, the experiments are those actually shown in the schools lectures, modified for filming where desirable. The action before the camera is in each case carefully rehearsed so that the performance of the experiment is seen as clearly as possible. No attempt however has been made to prepare a script. The talk is quite informal, not a prepared one, in the belief that it will be fresher and more interesting if given in this way. It is hoped that the imperfections, inevitable in an impromptu talk, will be overlooked for the sake of its more personal nature. Crown copyright information is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland. Subscribe to our other YouTube channel for weekly science talks and explosive short films: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution Were on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ri_science and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/royalinstitution and Tumblr: http://ri-science.tumblr.com/$